Stalemate of the Stars
Stalemate of the Stars is a third-party modification made by Mohammed for the video game Freelancer. It takes place roughly 45 years after the events of the game when the four houses of Sirius have grown to become nine in total and have divided themselves into three different blocks: called the Core Colonies, the Fringe Colonies and the Frontier Colonies. The Blocks The Core Colonies The Core Colonies consist of three of the four original colonies Kusari, Liberty and Bretonia and occupy the core of the contemporary, extended Sirius Sector, hence their name. The colonies are highly stable and suffer little crime within their borders but do generally not have such strong militaries individually. Combined however, they form a formidable military power capable of matching the otherwise far more superior Fringe Colonies. Their core worlds are Shintokyo, Nara, Boston, Manhattan, Los Angeles, New London and Cambridge. Alien artefacts and cardamine are still considered contrabrand in these houses, with the exception of Kusari, where alien artefact trade is legal though controlled and regulated by the government. The Fringe Colonies Lying inbetween the stable Core Colonies and the relatively new Frontier Colonies, the Fringe Colonies serves as a buffer zone between the two, making communication between the first two blocks rather difficult. However, this has granted them a significant economic and political advantage, as they are able to use their position to act as middlemen between the two, charging higher-than-usual prices for the wares they ship from the frontier to the core. The Fringe Colonies include the original nation of Rheinland as well as the two newer ones of Hispania and the Federation of the Independent Nations of Sirius (FINS). Their name is derived from their position, as Rheinland and the Federation pretty much border only unchartered space where they don't share one with the Core Colonies, or they occupy positions that was in older times considered the fringe, as is the case with Hispania. They are the strongest military power in the Sector, merging Rheinland's numbers, Hispania's training and the Federation's resources and production capacity. Soldiers from the Fringe Colonies are most often highly experienced due to the nations' turbulent history as well as high piracy rates, their technology is also quite unique, blending traditional Rheinlandic hardware with Hispanic innovations derived from xenoarchaeologic research. Their core worlds are Neu-Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Stuttgart, Malta, Creta, Madrid, Nieuw Amsterdam, Rotterdam, New Toronto, Seoul, Paris, Bayruth and Istanbul. Both alien artefacts and cardamine are legal in these houses. The Frontier Colonies The frontier nation are relative newcomers to the Sirius Sector. Having arrived as late as 815 AS and contact only being established in 843AS, their systems are relatively underdeveloped by Sirius standards, even though they're ahead technologically. So named because they occupy a largely uncharted region of space, they've still managed to develop several planets and asteroid fields in a very short amount of time. They include the new nations of Serica, Ruthenia and Philistea, which are of Chinese, Russian and Arab heritage respectively. Their region of space is rather colourless in comparison to central Sirius, but they have an abundance of worlds and asteroid fields and thus resources at their disposal, and their advanced technology, especially propulsion, allows them to expand at an unprecedented rate, without having to use jump access points. Their core worlds are Xinbeijing, Xintianjin, Xinshanghai, Xinchongqing, Nanjing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Nanning, Taipei, Novaja Moskva, Sankt Peterburg, Velikij Novgorod, Nižnij Novgorod, Rjazan, Kazan, Kursk, Saratov, Rostov, Ekaterinburg, Jakutsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnojarsk, Vladikavkaz, Krasnojarsk, Riyadh al-Jidad, Baghdad, Quds, Rabat, Amman, Dimashq, Khartoum, Qahira, Iskandariyya, Jaza'ir, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Masqat.. Alien artefacts are legal there, but not cardamine.